Eastern Railway (ER) and the state government will evict around 400 encroachers on both sides of the tracks between Hridaypur and Barasat stations on the northern fringes of the city. In a meeting held on Monday, it was decided that the drive on the Sealdah-Bongaon section would be jointly undertaken by the railway and the local administration on July 19 and 20. H.K. Dwibedi, district magistrate of North 24-Parganas, said the squatters were posing serious problems to maintenance of tracks. Divisional railway manager, Sealdah, Dulal Mitra wrote to the state government, urging the authorities to remove the encroachers. According to Mitra, there are approximately 380 squatters along both sides of the track. ER officials had threatened to stop train services on different sections of the Sealdah division if the encroachers were not evicted. The average speed of the local trains had to be slowed down due to the encroachment problem. Railway officials said if the drive was successful, they would take undertake similar action in other areas, including the south section.

Sanjay Raha, 25, was arrested at Kalicharan Ghosh Road in Cossipore on Monday afternoon, when he, along with two other associates, attempted to loot a jewellery shop in the area. Residents caught Raha and beat him up. He was admitted to RG Kar Hospital. Police recovered a pipegun from him. The vehicle in which the three youths had come was found in Kalighat. The two accomplices are absconding.

Akbar Sahaji, Kajish Sahaji, Vilayat Sahaji, Sattar Sahaji and Asgar Sahaji were sentenced to life imprisonment by the Barasat third additional session judge, P.G. Dutta, on Monday. The five were charged with the murder of Samirul Gazi, a resident of Uttar Bargundi in Basirhat, North 24-Parganas. Gazi was murdered in 1997. The five belong to the same family and had killed Gazi over a land dispute.

People obstructed the running of EMU trains up to Budge Budge for two hours in Eastern Railway’s (ER) Sealdah division on Monday morning. They demanded that Budge Budge station be declared a model station.

The state health department is planning to open a biotechnology unit at the School of Tropical Medicine, director of health services C.R. Maity said on Monday. At present, the government is compelled to send samples for complicated tests to National Institute of Virology in Pune or National Institute of Communicable Diseases in New Delhi.

Metro rail services were disrupted on Monday evening following a technical snag in a Dum Dum-bound train. The train reached Netaji Bhawan at 7.48 pm with four doors of a compartment refusing to close. Two trains had to be rescheduled.